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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24058117">Last Chance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights'>centreoftheselights</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sanders Sides (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Asphyxiation, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Capture, Dehumanization, Desperation, Dragging Oneself Along The Ground, Escape Attempt, Exhaustion, Gen, Gills, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Toxic Roceit, Kicked While You're Down, Loss of hope, Merman Roman Sanders, Unhappy Ending, Unsympathetic Deceit Sanders, Villain Deceit Sanders, accidental injury, held captive, suffocation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:21:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,444</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24058117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Roman never thought he'd be one of the mer unlucky enough to be captured by humans and held prisoner on land. But he was - and tonight might be his last chance of escape...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo, Centreoftheselights' Bad Things Happen Bingo 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Last Chance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>One of my <a href="https://potestessemagishomosexualitatis.tumblr.com/tagged/bad-things-happen-bingo">Bad Things Happen Bingo prompts</a>:</p><p>If you're still taking prompts and if no one has done these yet, dragging themselves on the floor + twarted escape maybe? Roman (bc I love torturing my boi) is trying to escape somewhere and he has to belly crawl to get past the guards, but he gets caught and dragged away anyway</p><p><b>Warning:</b> This is an unhappy ending fic and much darker than my usual work. Please check the warnings carefully before reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It had to be tonight.</p><p>Roman didn't know what was going to happen in the morning, but he knew it was nothing good. After weeks of the same routine, the same small bare tank in the same windowless grey room, he had been moved suddenly and without warning. His captors were preparing for something, and whatever it was, it was bound to be bad news for their luckless captive.</p><p>He didn't know where he was now – another windowless room, still in the stiflingly small travel tank they had forced him into yesterday, so cramped that he had jostled against the sides with every bounce of the truck – but he knew one thing: the ocean was nearby. He could feel the call of it singing in his blood, his heart pounding in time with every roll of the waves. They must be right on the shoreline – a dock, perhaps? – and that meant that this was the best opportunity he had had in months.</p><p>It might well be his last chance.</p><p>So, when the men had come to feed him for the evening, he had batted his eyelids and flashed his fins, and pretended not to understand their language as they laughed at him and called him shallow and foolish and all sorts of worse things besides. They thought him empty-headed and flirtatious, and they never thought to double-check the catch that held the top of the tank closed, which was now broken, jammed with a shiny red scale pulled from his tail.</p><p>He waited until the latest hours of the night, when he could feel the moon calling from high overhead and the waters swelling up to meet her. And then, quick and quiet, he had heaved upon the lid of the tank, sliding it far enough aside that he could wriggle loose.</p><p>Roman knew that the next part would not be pleasant. The humans had kept him out the water on several occasions, normally strapped to an examination table, and he knew the way it would make his head spin and his gills ache. He knew that he would only have a limited amount of time to find his way safely back to the ocean, or else…</p><p>Virgil's voice echoed in his mind, telling him that it was too risky, that too much could go wrong. But Virgil wasn't here, and if Roman ever wanted to see him again, he had to seize this chance. His ordeal <em>would</em> end tonight.</p><p>One way or another.</p><p>With a final few deep breaths of water, Roman hauled himself over the lip of the tank, his arms aching as he lowered himself onto the ground. He had once been the strongest mer in his shoal, but weeks of languishing inside undersized tanks with no space to exercise had weakened him, his muscles now shaky and burning from exertion.</p><p>His tail, so majestic and powerful beneath the water, was now nothing but dead weight, dragging on the ground behind him. He tried to writhe like a snake to get some kind of traction as he pulled himself along with his arms. A few quick heaves and he was out into the corridor, a room he'd never seen before. He turned in the direction of the ocean, hoping that a direct route would suffice. There would be no second chances.</p><p>Roman could allow himself no time to adjust to the strange feeling of air in his mouth. It felt like dying, like he couldn't breathe, like instead of the water he breathed his mouth was filled with nothingness. That wasn't true, he knew – his gills would still function, half-able to extract oxygen from the thin fluid of the world above the water. He sucked in breath after breath as quickly as he could, gills flaring frantically on the sides of his neck, trying to compensate for the lower efficiency with sheer volume, but he could feel his strength draining away with every minute he spent on land.</p><p>He reached the end of this corridor, turned down another. In one of the side rooms he could hear voices – not the cruel, joking taunts of the men he was used to, but something tinny and buzzing, like one of the small talking devices the humans used to communicate – but below it, breathing. A guard was close by, listening intently to the source of the noise.</p><p>Despite his desperation, Roman forced himself to go slow, inching his way along with as much care as he could muster. He was conscious of every gasp of air through his mouth, the way it hissed through his gills, the low, rough scrape of his scales against the floor. It was agony to take his time, but the price of being caught now was more than he could bear, so he forced his way onwards, even as his head began to spin, his muscles burning from lack of oxygen.</p><p>At the end of the corridor was a door, the handle high above him. He wiggled himself upright, levering against the wood to reach for the handle, his tail squirming unsteadily underneath him as he fought for balance. When he finally wrenched it open, he all but fell through the narrow gap, and -</p><p>A sharp gash of pain along the side of his tail, as a sharp corner sliced open his flesh. Roman bit down on his hand to stifle a cry of pain. He had to keep moving, he was so close – outside now, under the starlit sky, the scent of sea heavy in the air all around him.</p><p>He could feel his gills struggling, beginning to dry out from the constant flow of air, leaving him breathless and gasping. Desperately, he scraped his hands along his body, trying to cup whatever moisture he could find onto his neck, buy himself a few more precious seconds. He writhed his way across rough wooden planks, barely feeling the sharp splinters that scratched at his skin. He was so close now, he could hear the waves beneath him, and even as darkness began to eat at the corners of his vision he pressed himself to make it a little further, just a couple more metres, he was so close to being free -</p><p>The walking cane slammed down on his hand, and Roman howled in pain as it pinned him to the dock.</p><p>“Well,” a man's voice said coldly. “When you promised me my cargo, I didn't think he'd be delivering himself.”</p><p>Another voice was nearby, frantically making excuses, but Roman's focus was soon distracted as a cold splash of water was tossed over his neck. His dehydrated gills flared weakly back into life, and he could breathe again, his vision clearing. All his strength and resolve had shattered – he was too exhausted to even struggle against his new captor, as his last hope of freedom was snuffed out.</p><p>A moment later his hand was released, and a sharp kick to his side rolled him onto his back. He looked up at a stranger in a black cloak, the human's face half-covered in – were those scales?</p><p>But if the stranger had some kinship to mer, it didn't lend any kindness to his eyes as he looked Roman up and down.</p><p>“Hardly the state you promised. If I wanted him <em>damaged</em>, I could have done it myself.” He leant closer, and his gaze took on a hungry edge that made Roman's heart race in fear. “His looks, however, are as advertised. Perhaps you are not entirely incompetent after all.”</p><p>He straightened up again, and clicked his fingers. Suddenly, hands seized Roman, lifting him by the arms and tail, pulling roughly against his fins. He panicked, a fresh surge of strength pulsing through him as he struggled desperately to break free -</p><p>“Take him to the yacht,” the stranger snapped. “We wouldn't want any more escape attempts, would we?”</p><p>If Roman had the throat to speak, he would have spat venom at the human, cursing and snarling like a beast. As it was, all he could do was scowl, squirming weakly as he was lifted from the dock by three men, hung between them with no more dignity than a sack of grain.</p><p>When he fell limp, the scaled man grabbed him suddenly by the hair, wrenching Roman's head up to face him.</p><p>“Whatever foolish hopes you had tonight, I suggest you abandon them,” he purred. “You are mine now, and I intend you to remain so for a <em>very</em> long time.”</p><p>Then he snapped his fingers once more, and Roman was carried inexorably away – away from he life-giving sea, away from the world he knew, and towards an uncertain and terrifying future.</p>
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